‘Ministers want to shelve your library’ – Rachel Cooke

Published: 24 June 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS

AWARD-WINNING journalist Rachel Cooke has warned library users over the future of the service and the need to fight to keep the “precious” resource open.

The Observer writer, who tours the country hosting discussions on the subject, gave a talk to the Friends group at Heath library on Wednesday night.

Ms Cooke said: “Our libraries, it seems to me, really are in peril. This is not hyperbole. I do not use this word lightly.”

Last year the Town Hall unveiled a programme for library reform called Growing Your Library. Bosses have since scrapped 14 posts and five senior managers have taken early retirement. Officials need to make savings of £2million in four years and recently spent some of their limited funding on self-service machines. A sum of £600,000 has been set aside for redundancy payouts while officials say the same amount has been saved by cutting back on staff numbers.

Ms Cooke said the gravest dangers come from Whitehall as successive culture ministers have all had visions for the future of libraries, she said, and none of them have included books. 

From David Lammy to Margaret Hodge and Andy Burnham, they have all followed a model that would see libraries become noisier places with cafés, more computers, and, in some cases, such as in the Idea Store in Whitechapel, mobile phones, the writer said.

“Only later did I realise that, for many of our politicians, books really are not central to the library experience,” said Ms Cooke.  “Yoga rooms are just as important, and coffee shops, and even computer games. In fact, why call them libraries at all?” 

Ms Cooke said that in the past three years, 82 libraries have been closed across the country.

She said: “A BBC survey has confirmed that libraries are top of most councils’ lists of the services they are considering cutting.”

In practice, Ms Cooke warned, this could mean libraries across Britain could be cut by a third. Others will stay open if staffed by volunteers. 

She urged library users and friends groups not to offer to supplement the books budget with their own money – something the Heath Friends group are already doing – as it could pave the way for further cuts. 

Ms Cooke also warned them not to offer to volunteer to staff libraries, as politicians will use that as an opportunity to implement further staff cuts.

Under the Public Libraries and Museums Act of 1964, the council is legally bound to provide a service. If users feel that it is being run down, she said, they should write to government ministers and the media, and keep using their libraries to demonstrate their popularity. 

Ms Cooke added: “Our libraries are a precious legacy, given to us by our Victorian ancestors: our library service is as magnificent, and as beautiful, in its way, as a city park or an art gallery. We must not let it be ransacked.”